Camellia belongs to the camellia of theaceae. It originated from China, and it has a long history of cultivation. Nowadays, countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United States have developed rapidly in breeding, planting and production of camellia, and have entered into the stage of industrialization. Camellia has the function of activating blood circulation and arresting bleeding, reducing diarrhea and reducing the acne. Furthermore, camellia is rich in antioxidants such as flavonoids, saponins, and polyphenols, and has amazing effect of anti-aging and anti free-radical. Cosmetics with camellia extract as active ingredient have functions like anti free-radical, anti-aging, making spots fade away, moisturising and sun-blocking.
Currently, the most popular methods to prepare camellia extract are: 1) heat reflux extraction or distillation by using organic solvent; 2) extraction at a high temperature by using water as the solvent. However, camellia extract prepared by these methods has low content of anti-oxidation active ingredients. For the convenience of storage, concentrating the camellia extract into camellia concentrate or making the camellia extract into camellia powder is required. When you need camellia extract, you can dilute or dissolve the camellia concentrate or powder. However, the active ingredients in such camellia concentrate or powder declined, leading to the loss of the natural color and fragrance of camellia flower, and the effects of anti-oxidation and anti free-radical greatly decreased.
So, it is of great significance to invent a method to prepare camellia extract which has high content of anti-oxidation ingredients, good security and high stability.